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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717743">cemetery</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/limeprint/pseuds/limeprint'>limeprint</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cemetery, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, akaashi is a ghost, sad undertones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:14:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>979</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/limeprint/pseuds/limeprint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Keiji sees him then. Another boy in the cemetery, alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akaashi Keiji/Kuroo Tetsurou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>cemetery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>sad and unbetaed</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He’s a boy in a cemetery, late at night when visitors are gone and even the lights at the groundskeeper's windows are shut off.</p><p> </p><p>He’s a boy in a cemetery, effortlessly sweeping through the land of tombstones, fingers brushing against levigated rock that is gelid to the touch. Not that Keiji would know; he doesn’t touch it. He just <em> remembers </em>that it’s cold to the touch. He guesses that doesn’t matter much; to him, everything has been cold to the touch for a long time.</p><p> </p><p>He’s a boy in a cemetery, playing hide and seek with the howling late-night wind. He always wins, because the wind can’t see him, not any more than the kind ladies that visit every Sunday to brush dead leaves off their assigned little square of stone. </p><p> </p><p>He’d like to tell them that the graves are empty, and dead people don’t need to clean up their rooms anymore, but he figures that wouldn’t be polite. Not that he could talk to them, anyway. (Besides, he’s pretty sure they know it already.)</p><p> </p><p>Right, Keiji doesn’t talk to anyone, so whose voice is that?</p><p> </p><p>“We really shouldn’t be here.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s nothing more than a fake-whisper, interlaced with the subtle tremble of poorly concealed fear.</p><p> </p><p>Then, the same voice, growing panicked, “Bo? Are you there?”</p><p> </p><p>Keiji sees him then. Another boy in the cemetery, alone. But this one has feet that leave footprints on the grassy terrain where he walks, and hands going pale from the grip of the chilly air, and very dark hair that spike in all impossible directions and almost make Keiji’s lips turn upward.</p><p> </p><p>“Bokuto? Where are you? This isn’t funny,” he speaks again, tone rising as he stops dead in his tracks, eyes darting everywhere around him only to be met by the void of the night.</p><p> </p><p><em> Stupid boy,</em> Keiji thinks. <em> Everyone knows you don’t speak aloud in a graveyard. </em></p><p> </p><p>And then, hazel eyes fix him with a gaze, mild panic blooming into terror at once, and the boy freezes.</p><p> </p><p>Keiji’s voice comes out croaky and a bit broken. In his defense, he hasn’t spoken in a long time. “You see me.” </p><p> </p><p>He hasn’t the strength to act surprised; talking is taking too much energy out of him already. It’s not the first time someone spots him, but it’s the first time they don’t scream at him. Keiji finds it considerate of him. </p><p> </p><p>“You shouldn’t be here,” the boy grits out instead, puffs of erratic exhales made manifest by the cold.</p><p> </p><p>“That makes two of us then,” Keiji grins just slightly, the feeling foreign to his mouth, and doesn’t get any closer. </p><p>
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</p><p>Kuroo can’t always see him. It’s just sometimes, when the hour is at its darkest and moon is eclipsed by thick layers of vapor, that the veil keeping them apart is the thinnest.</p><p> </p><p>“Like a glow-in-the-dark sticker,” Kuroo tries to explain once he’s figured it out, because it turns out he’s a <em> huge nerd </em> - as Bokuto puts it, apparently - and of course his first reaction upon meeting Keiji had been to go and study the laws of ghost sighting. “When the light is on, you don’t see it. But the more the shadow, the more I see you shine.”  </p><p> </p><p>That’s good. The night is one big shadow after all.</p><p> </p><p>“That means we can never see the sun together.”</p><p> </p><p>“We can,” Keiji reasons, just because he doesn’t like the way Kuroo’s face scrunches into a pout. “You just won’t know I’m there.”</p><p> </p><p>Keiji likes Kuroo because he’s funny, a lot funnier than the wind, because he doesn’t ignore him like the wind does. He makes really stupid jokes that make Keiji’s torso shake in gentle laughter.</p><p> </p><p>Kuroo proceeds to tell him about Kenma and Bokuto and Kai and Yaku, and he says he only told Kenma and Bokuto about him, because no one else would believe him and then they’d think he’s gone insane. He’s really happy ‘cause Bokuto wouldn’t believe him at first, but now he does, and he even made him really sloppy sandwiches ‘cause he says midnight snacks at the graveyard would be cool as heck.</p><p> </p><p>Then he seems to get self-conscious when he realizes Keiji doesn’t eat, and he gets flustered.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll bring you flowers next time.” He tries to remediate.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t smell them.” At least he tries.</p><p> </p><p>“A song, then.”</p><p> </p><p>And isn’t that funny? Keiji can <em> hear </em> how warm Kuroo’s voice is, but can’t <em> feel </em>the cozy heat of his body, so close to him he could’ve rested his head on his shoulder, in another existence, in another cemetery.</p><p>
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</p><p>Keiji shows him the Akaashi family’s crypt, and Kuroo can’t get in, of course, because he doesn’t walk through walls and he is not inclined to break in, but he still says the facade is <em> really freaking neat</em>, with all its flowery reliefs set into rock, and the sculpted strings of ivy wrapping around the thin marble columns, and the real ivy right over it. Even then, he doesn’t ask about the date or the names engraved into the stone.</p><p>
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</p><p>Like everything else, Kuroo is icy to the touch. He guesses he’s cold to Kuroo, too, because the other shivers and retreats at once, eyes wide and startled.</p><p> </p><p>Keiji doesn’t take it personally. </p><p> </p><p>He just retrieves his hand from his cheek and settles it back on his lap instead.</p><p> </p><p>But then Kuroo leans in, amber iris wide and cheeks flaming, and their lips are close enough to brush.</p><p> </p><p>“Do it again.” </p><p> </p><p>So Keiji hovers Kuroo’s mouth, and he imagines that their lips actually touch, and that their teeth clash a little, and that something in his chest glows pink and red and crimson (and no more grey like the mist he is made of from head to toe).</p><p> </p><p>He thinks that if boys in cemeteries were allowed to kiss each other, eternity would sound a little warmer.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>wrote this on a whim yesterday night while angsting.. sorry .... find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/kuroy4ku">twt</a> maybe</p></blockquote></div></div>
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